What gives you a sense of meaning in your work?

Hosw can we create more meaning for other people in their work?

2000 years of studying human behaviour and we still don't know?

Example pointless job:- I enter our local Homebase and am 'greeted' by some employee who greets me with; "Welcome to Homebase sir, if there's anything you need please do not hesitate to ask one of our colleagues".

And on leaving he bids me farewell with; "Did you find everything you needed today sir? - - "thank you!" ---" have a nice day".

?????  2000 years or more employing people and it seems we've not learned much.

:-(

Not sure I entirely agree Steve Bridger on this one. The point is that work is not the be all and end all tovsone people that sone in HR or writing management books seem to think. For some /many it’s about a place to simply earn cash to live outside work. And whilst it’s nice that work in a friendly team and to not be stressed by the work it is sadly for many something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

We spend ages on things like company values but the question remains in reality dovthey matter anywhere near as much as we think they do for the vast majority of people? I remain to be convinced to be honest and no I don’t think that makes people robots but simply reflects the position in their hierarchy of needs that work holds and that the organisations aims, goals and vision has far less relevance to them than paying the bills.

I am sure this topic relates to far wider and more fundamental effects of technological change (or 'modernisation' as Berger Berger and Kellner called it, as cited in my previous post above.)

Such as this outlines the process of modern technological change, which, unless Mankind is very careful, will be highly unlikely to represent change for the better for all but a relatively few consequentially-enriched oligarchs:

www.theguardian.com/.../4th-industrial-revolution-brings-promise-and-peril-for-humanity-technology-davos

David actually Walmart who pioneered that approach have shown that for most ( although clearly not you ) it’s far from a pointless job. It engages with the customer, makes most feel welcomed and a real person rather than just a number and if done well can greatly increase identification with that store / brand and repeat visits.

They have trialled using them and not using them and commercially it makes sense to have them. So perhaps because we can’t see the point doesn’t mean it’s pointless.

As I said earlier I would be surprised if in any commercial organisation there are many pointless jobs anymore. The budgets are just too stretched and tones too tight.

I accept there are many jobs that may not give high levels of personal satisfaction or reward for the job holder. But that’s another matter I think.

I think Keith has hit on a key point here.
In these days of leaner and leaner management the luxury of jobs with no purpose for a company is IMHO less and less present.
One of the challenges of today's world for a lot of people is to be able to see what their job actually contributes - good line managers help people to understand the purpose behind the things they do, but not all managers are good people managers.....
Even then, there are many jobs whose purpose is evident, but which are unlikely to engage most workers in an enduring way - try spending an evening schlepping dustbins around in freezing temperatures and you'll quickly get my drift.
As HR people we have a duty to assist our employers and managers to achieve engagement but even in 2018 miracles can't happen everywhere and every day :-)

I agree with a lot of what you say, Keith - particularly with regards 'paying the bills'. I certainly agree with Ray in that a challenge for employers is to ensure employees see the meaning in their work through the impact that is has. Hopefully a positive impact.

To the OP, HR has an obligation to play a role (and a relatively important one, at that) in creating meaningful work, to the extent that it is simply good business sense to be sure that every job in an organization makes a meaningful contribution towards that company's success, however it chooses to measure success.

But creating meaningful work and "creating meaning for people in their work" are not the same thing. I believe that it is fundamentally down to the individual employee to find his or her own meaning in what they do. An enlightened and cash-rich employer might well put some time and investment into helping activities like mindfulness or coaching to help people learn the tools to find such meaning but the actual task of finding it isn't one that can be outsourced, to HR or anyone else!

On the topic of BS jobs, though, one of my first jobs was taking socks out of one box, changing the labels, and putting them back into another box. I was the sole employee of a subsidiary company within the company that owned the warehouse where I worked and, as a result, worked in an entirely different part of the warehouse from everyone else and never saw another person all day long. I found meaning in listening to Radio 4 for eight hours a day and in the benefits of cycling there and back every day. Not much meaning to be found in socks, to be fair.

Not much meaning to be found in socks, to be fair.

https://www.stand4socks.com/

The revolution has to start somewhere ;)

I like you being the sole employee in socks